Though discovered many years ago, Botswana Agates were first marketed in 1971, and have quickly become one of these best known agates in the world.
Botswana Agate gets its name from the only known source of this beautiful and interesting gemstone--Botswana, Africa.
These semiprecious gemstones form in small nodules and are generally white, gray, black, dark brown, red and pink. Extremely rare and sought after are colors of green, yellow and lilac.
Though more of a banded agate, it can be found occasionally with moss or tube inclusions.
Botswana Agates are about 140 to 180 million years old.
It is getting very hard to get this gorgeous banded gray and white agate semi precious stone material, known as Botswana Agate, due to export laws in Africa. It is no longer legal to export rough rock. Often the Africans will tumble polish the agates so they can export them, but unfortunately this often leads to bad fractures.
Botswana Agate is a member of the chalcedony family. Agate cabochons have a hardness of 7 and take an excellent polish.
Botswana Agate cabochon stones are thought to help bring focus on solutions and work through emotional suppression, while enhancing creativity. It is also believed to counteract all manner of poisons, including emotional and spiritual poisoning.